Walls
by PlaidButterfly
Summary: The story of a certain Catiline Riddle, grandchild of Voldemort and victim of fate. AU, not Book6safe.
1. Chapter 1

**Author's Notes**

This story is a minor Alternate Universe stemming from the fact that I began writing it before book six came out – so it's not "OotP safe" and does not take the events presented in book six into account.

Every new section (there may be more than one section to a chapter) begins with a 'soundtrack' and, usually, a quote. The quote usually has some relevance. The soundtrack is just what I was listening to. If you have the music handy pull it out and listen while you're reading. It does synch up, trust me.

Read and enjoy, comment if you believe me deserving :)

--

Soundtrack:  
Worms v. Birds, Modest Mouse  
Inner Universe (theme from Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex)  
Nature Boy, Celine Dion

**"I am terrified by the eternal silence of these infinite spaces."**  
-Blaise Pascal

--

Azkaban smelled of death.

Logically, one would think first and foremost of the prisoners, but they alone were not the condemned ones. Among the Aurors the word held a double meaning - partially a prison for those tried in a court of law, partially a prison for those tried in a court of peers. It was occupied by that odd class of Auror not quite deserving of dishonorable discharge, but not worthy of retiring to rest on their laurels.

The first question anyone asked to a newcomer was, "What did you do?" It was as valid a question to the prisoners as it was to the guards. One was banished for regularly beating his wife, but he was a good Auror, good at his job, so the Ministry turned a blind eye as long as possible, until finally he was here. Another stole a few petty amounts of money here and there from his department. At first, he had good excuses, and then, he did it because he could. And then there were people like MacNeill. Whenever someone asked about them, they never answered directly, just a voice to their left coughed nervously about an old partner, an accident, a case that's never been solved, suspicious circumstances.

Some were just too soft. They didn't stay very long. The hard ones stayed, blurring the line between gaoler and prisoner.

It was night. Adams could just barely tell because the candles in the building had gotten just a fraction lighter. Azkaban was timeless - winter was only a fraction colder than summer, both night and day were impenetrably black, silence punctuated only by the steady drumbeat of the waves pounding the building as tempests rose and fell, rose and fell. It was dinner time only because he had been told it was dinner time, and he was given the cart full of bowls of barely-nourishing soup to push around and distribute. It was an effeminate, soft job. That was why Adams had it.

Rinaldi walked beside him, shooing away the dementors that stood around each cell like hungry vultures. Around the bars of one cell, a particularly large pack of the beasts stood. Adams swore he saw one drooling, and almost believed that as Rinaldi waved them back with the strong light from his wand, it gave a hyena-like cackle and growl.

With a shudder, he pushed the creaking cart full of bowls of soup up to the next cell. Breaking the silence, he remarked:

"You know, I've heard about him."

Rinaldi snorted loudly. "Just give the soup to 'im and move on." His voice held a tense edge of nervousness.

Adams looked over to him questioningly.

"Give it to 'im and move on. I... I don't like 'im," Rinaldi explained nervously before his voice picked up speed and courage. "You shouldn't either."

"Dangerous? Him?" Adams' voice held a small lilt of happy doubt. "I know what they say, about him being, you know, the grandson of You-Know-Who an' all, but... Look at the kid, Rinaldi. I mean, he's... he's a kid."

"No kid stares at you like that."

The words hung very heavily in the air - the one piece of evidence Adams could not dispute. Lips puckering into a pout, then a frown, then a grimace, he hastily stuck the bowl in-between the bars of the cell, shoving it forward towards a figure lying up against the corner.

He was small, they had gotten that accurate. And thin - impossibly, skeletally thin, hidden beneath the tatters and rags of what used to be a simple but elegant black set of robes. His hair was long - tied back behind him, falling in loose messy curls over his face and onto his shoulders, the black of each curl blending with the black of the shadow. And his face...  
There was no face - just a porcelain mask. It smiled stupidly at Adams and Rinaldi as they came, as they talked, as they went - as it had been molded to. Nobody questioned the mask - he had been taken from his grandfather with it on; he refused to take it off, even when sleeping, and speculation on what it hid ran wild. Just where the mask ended a long, thick scar scurried down his neck, an indication of why he gave no verbal answer to any question. And... his eyes. They were deep set in the mask, large and matte black, holding no gleam of intelligence or spirit or drive - otherworldly in the whole - like a little china doll's. He sat there in the corner of his cell, limp and lifeless, a plaything tossed aside, staring fixedly ahead with a stupid false smile pasted on his face, not noticing the world, not noticing the soup near him growing cold.

"I tell you, I don't like that boy," Rinaldi grumbled in a whisper as they got farther down the corridor, where the lights were less frequent and dimmer.

"Mmm," Adams agreed in a worried hum. And the cart of soup squeaked.

---

It was sunny out.

Catiline liked the sun. It made everything warm and pleasant and happy, especially where he now was - the nice little cottage that he and Rose and Joseph all shared, but he could only get to every-so-often. It was a beautiful place. Sunlight gleamed over the near fields (which were full of horses - Arabians and Mustangs) to the far horizon (which changed every day - sometimes a beach, sometimes a forest - it depended on what Cat fancied). Today, though, he stayed close to the house, focusing very hard on each step through the grass, each pinprick on the soles of his bare feet. He could feel himself being pulled dangerously back to where he used to be - cold - hungry - lonely, but he knew if he tried hard enough he could stay... stay with Rose and Joseph, warm and provided for with company.

The dull ache at the bottom of his stomach disappeared as he focused harder and harder on the little garden around the cottage. Irises. Rose had planted irises, because they were pretty, and some of them were blooming right now. Cat bent down to examine one. It was blue, such a pretty blue, with little streaks of yellow in the center. But it didn't smell of anything. Something else did, though - butter and flour and apples, cinnamon and nutmeg: a baking apple pie. He relaxed. He was in, he was there, he could stop worrying.

Gleefully, he opened the door of the cottage (and it squeaked, it always squeaked). Rose called out hello to him as he entered. Her voice was cheerful. He called out hello back. It had been such a long time since he used his voice, he had almost forgotten what it sounded like, but here, with Rose and Joseph, he could speak freely. It was a happy freedom he experienced nowhere else.

"Where's Joseph?" he asked Rose curiously, led into the kitchen by the tempting smell of the cooking pie.

"Out with the horses," she replied pleasantly. "Someone has to groom them and exercise them, after all. They've been rather anxious. I think they've been missing you." She continued in a worried tone: "_We've_ been missing you."

"I'm sorry I didn't come for so long," Cat answered in a sheepish tone. "I just couldn't make it over."

"That's all right, dear." Rose dusted the flour from her hands to give him a motherly half-hug. "I know how hard it is for you. Just take your time."

He sighed, leaning against her for a moment, before she patted him on the back.

"Why don't you go see if Joseph needs any help? If anything, you can go feed the horses this," she said, placing an apple in his hands.

With a laugh and a nod, he hugged her tightly and then swiftly went out the door once more.

"Be back for dinner!" she called out at him.

"I will!"

As soon as his feet touched grass, he knew he had to concentrate. Between the house and the barn, his mind always got a little muzzy and easily distracted - so vulnerable to slipping back. He concentrated on the apple in his hand. The sun was shining off it. It was such a large apple - maybe he should split it between horses...

And it was such a pretty red...

"Dinnertime! Dinnertime! Wake up, yeh little gits. You gotta be in 'ere for summin', doesn't mean I have ta' treat you like anythin' like yer 'ooman!"

Such a –

The sun, it was going –

Rose - Joseph - ?

"Dinner! I said it was dinner. Now get up. Damn azy good fer nuthin's. I pass out th' soup and even do th' work of gettin' th' Dementors away from you an' this is how yeh repay me..."

The sharp sound of Auror Mackinac's ladle hitting the bars of his cell jolted Catiline back to reality. With reality came cold and hunger and loneliness - and dispair.

"Don't just stare at me, boy. Hand me that empty bowl so you can get your dinner. Jeesh. Damn lazy, retarded good-fer-nuthin's." The old Auror grumbled, leering at Cat with a one-eyed glare. Hesitantly, Catiline reached over to push the bowl in his cell towards the bars.

It sloshed, the cold soup from last night spilling out the front.

Riled, the old Auror snatched it up. "Good-for-nuthin' boy! If this is how you eat yer soup, I don't see why I haveta help th' Ministry waste money on you," he spat, glaring at Cat with all his might. "Maybe you'll be hungrier t'morrow, huh?"

He waited a few moments to see what Catiline would say, but of course he said nothing. After a very short while the dreamy false smile on his mask got to the older man, and the Auror skittered away.

Catiline watched him go. After that, he curled up again in the corner of his cell, trying desperately to get to Rose and Joseph. Somehow, it didn't work. All he gained were nightmares.


	2. Chapter 2

Soundtrack:

Electrical Storm - U2  
JIROB/The Scientist - Coldplay v. Radiohead  
Here with Me - Dido (remix)  
Stairway to Heaven - Led Zeppelin  
Float On - Modest Mouse

---

Time changes people.

Time had changed Harry Potter the most. To compare him to his former self, happy in his early Hogwarts days, would be like comparing a cloudless shining day to a stormy, rumbling night. Apples and oranges, they weren't equivalent.

Although not tall now - he never would be - he was at least of medium height, built firmly out of lithe and powerful muscles that worked precisely as he wanted them, like a well-oiled machine. He was not bulky or exactly muscled-looking in build, but instead lanky in the way a panther is lanky, a dangerous sort of skinniness to let even the casual observer that he was all bones and formidable muscle. His glasses were long gone, swapped for vision-correcting spells, leaving his brilliant green eyes open to the world. If he glared at people, often they would look away after a few seconds, unable to take the strength of the brilliant emerald piercing through them.

He dressed smartly. People expected him to, for one, and anything less would be a sign of weakness. He was acutely aware of signs of weakness, even obsessive. He was in a war. He woke up and reminded himself of that every day. To be weak was to lose; to lose was to die.

Sometimes, he woke up and wondered what a normal life was like. And then he remembered that daydreaming was a weakness.

In the sprawling pathways of Diagon, there was a cafe, and in that cafe Harry sat and impatiently tapped his foot, waiting for Hermione to finish her sandwich. It was supposed to have been a friendly lunch, a get-together of old friends. Although he tried to stop listening to the voice for awhile, something within him kept saying distinctly that chit-chatting with no purpose was a weakness.

Instead of listening to the awkward silence that was blossoming, he looked at the newspaper on the cafe table. There was an article about the boy - Voldemort's grandson. He was due, it said here, to be executed in two weeks - it was officially proclaimed today. They would give the boy a light execution, by Azkaban standards. Instead of making a Dementor happy, he apparently would be forced off of one of the island's sharp cliffs, into the sea, to be dashed upon the rocks. Food for seagulls. That was their mercy to him.

The article also noted, desperately trying to keep neutral, the Order's involvement to keep him alive. Harry gave a small snort when he read it. Everyone seemed to expect, with this matter, for him to take a bye, to sit it out, to kindly excuse himself. When he didn't, the other Order of the Phoenix members were a bit surprised, but continued on as if he wasn't there - as if expecting him to slack off and not pull his fair weight. Instead, he had turned it into a personal crusade. He liked surprising people. It gave him a perverse sort of guilty pleasure.

Hermione gulped loudly, wiping her fingers on the napkin in her lap as she leaned over to look at the newspaper. (Ron, meanwhile, had put his head propped up against a hand and was staring boredly at the passers-by, particularly the more busty of the women in the crowd.)

"Only _two weeks?_" Her voice gained a noticeably agitated tone. "They know that's not enough time for us to challenge the decision with all of the bureaucracy it takes! They're - they're - "

"Cheating," Harry said flatly. "They're the Ministry. They do that." Silence reigned for a beat. "So, what can we do?"

Hermione sighed, looking distressed and rubbing at her temples. Ron stirred his drink distractedly a moment before offering, "Maybe the pink B-341 injunction form...?"

"That one!" Hermione immediately seized upon it. "That might actually make it through in two weeks. It'll take a miracle, but it has a chance."

"Not a miracle, just a lot of fruit baskets," Ron said with a wide pleased grin.

Harry didn't smile at all, just gave another snort and reached for his pocket, pulling out a cigarette and lighting it.

"C'mon, Harry, it's a joke," Ron pressed, voice lighthearted and then suddenly switching into gravity - "Honestly, Harry. Don't you ever smile anymore?"

Hermione hastily agreed, nearly talking over him. "Really, Harry. I can't hardly remember the last time you smiled."

Harry stood, his face still frozen into a cold frown as he brought the cigarette down from his mouth. He stared at them for a few seconds, shocked and appalled, before stating in a voice as if he were explaining a basic concept to a small child that should know better:  
"We're in the middle of the war. I don't have time to smile."

As he walked away, parting the crowd like the Red Sea, Hermione and Ron suddenly became aware of how big and lonely Diagon was.


	3. Chapter 3

**Silent leges inter arma.  
Amid arms, laws grow silent.**  
-Cicero, _Pro Milone_ 11

Soundtrack:  
Rise Above – Afro Celt Sound System  
All Remains – Afro Celt Sound System

---

Two weeks went by surprisingly quickly. Fruit baskets, injunctions, paperwork, pleading and puppy eyes all had their due effect, and like acid rain trickling down to the fresh groundwater below, the news slowly reached the swift rivers of Azkaban gossip. The boy was getting out. Loopholes, legalese and lies- the Aurors didn't like it one bit.

A feeling of resentment and restlessness began to rise like a storm cloud on a sweltering June day. Adams was aware of it, but was one of the few not to participate. Through very subtle manipulation he had managed to get himself stuck with the job of delivering soup to the corridor where the boy was. He didn't mind it in the least - it was better than other forms of penance - laundry, paperwork, strict guard duty, or worst, suicide watches... In fact, he sort of enjoyed passing out soup. He barely admitted it to himself and would never do so in front of the other Aurors, but he was slowly growing more and more fond of the boy. He had a son about his age, his height at least. He kept wondering if the boy, perhaps, liked Quidditch just like his son did. It was the sort of idle dreaming only a father can do.

The boy seemed to pick up on the nuance of change in his attitude, and began to change as well. The blank stare at the far wall first broke to track him curiously, almost wantingly. The next day he was over by the side of his cell to take his bowl of soup. The day after that, he had collected all of the empty bowls and carefully stacked them - one atop another, each side perfectly even.

Adams paused as he came to a stop at the boy's cell, wheels of his soup cart squeaking. The boy scrambled up to stand ungracefully before picking up the bowls from the floor gently and passing them through the bars. It was an odd offering, partly one of appeasement, partly... something Adams couldn't quite identify. It scared him to think of the ramifications of the bowls, stacked so prettily, because they might just make the boy too human for Adams to cope with.

He muttered a "thank you" as he took them, awkwardly setting them down in his cart and then placing a full bowl of hot soup in the boy's hands. And for a moment he looked very long and hard at what was behind the mask, and for the first time saw something there.

The fear of what he saw made a lump form in his throat, but father's instinct eventually won out over it enough for him to clear his throat loudly and decide that something had to be done. "I'll bring you something - a present tomorrow," he said firmly, drawing back and starting to push his cart again. It was a vague promise, but he... well. He would think of something.

--

Tomorrow just always came too fast for Adams.

It was four-thirty and he was frantically pawing around his desk, looking for... something to bring. So far he had found a moldy square of chocolate from days long gone, some stationary from the desk's former owner, and a paper clip. The paper clip wasn't even a paper clip proper, but bent out of shape a long time ago by somebody's nervousness. He sighed. A depressing harvest. After looking over the pile a minute more, he finally picked up the closest thing to entertainment he had - his best pencil and a notepad. It was supposedly for official business, but in Azkaban, what was there of note? He felt no guilt giving it away. In fact, Adams hummed a little to himself as he stuck the pad and pen into his robes pocket. He'd tell the boy to think about what he wanted, and then write it on the pad. And then he could fetch whatever the boy wanted, a proper present from the outside world. Yes. That would do just fine.

His display of wanton glee earned him a stiff glaring from the other Aurors, standing like jackals around a carcass as they drank coffee and talked among themselves. They had very quietly decided that the boy deserved a little present from them, too. Adams knew, but promptly forgot. Willful ignorance was one of his special skills.

--

"Horses."

It was the next day. Adams was at his desk, another round of soup having been delivered - lunch, this time. He had also collected the little notebook from the boy. After all, he seemed so happy to receive it, first looking up a few times as if asking if it was really for him, then with Adams' reassurances immediately flipping it open and setting to work. Adams remembered chuckling to himself and expecting a long list of demands - blankets, pillows, food, a hot bath?

Instead... horses.

Perplexed, he flipped through the notebook again. Every page, front and back, was filled with pictures of horses. Some were galloping, some were standing still, some were jumping, some were laying stoically under pleasant trees. A myriad of coats and types galloped across every page - a dark Clydesdale, a buckskin Mustang, a grey Arabian. Each was carefully shaded, infinitely detailed, so much so that for a moment Adams was afraid to touch them. He finally did, petting the ear of a Shetland pony as if it were a living being.

"Horses..." Adams sighed again. "I can't get him horses." His tone echoed the same deep disappointment that a father knows when he figures out he can't give his children what they want for Christmas, simply because of money.

His daydreaming was interrupted by a hard tap on the shoulder. The group of other Aurors stood behind him, frowning and serious. Robespierre, the most laconic of the group and the one rumored to be the most dangerous, was the only one to speak. "I'm taking your job tonight, Adams."

Adams shirked away slightly - the group, large and powerful and silent, was more than a little frightening. "But - wh-?"

"New assignments from the Ministry just came in. You're back at your old desk job. And I get to take up your slack." Robespierre grinned widely - a sight which was not comforting at all. "So pack up."

There was a cold gleam in the eyes of the group which Adams began to identify. He had only seen it a few times before - once, really. He remembered the case very well... the serial killings in Diagon... He blinked, shook his head, shaking and bucking the bad memories off.

"Robespierre -" His voice was much more strident this time, losing its quailing tone.

"Shut up, Adams. Pack your desk." The words snapped through the air, and the glares became intense and vicious as ever. "You'll be fine here alone, won't you? We have to go find that boy, You-Know-Who's one, and give him a bit of a surprise. We've been planning it _all_ week. I'm sure he'll like it very much." The smile returned again, fanged and cruel, and spread from Robespierre 's face to the group behind him. With it came a jackal's laugh from the back, an awful vicious snicker that continued as they went out.

Adams didn't follow. He just sat there, staring at the horses and his bent paper clip and rusty old desk in the flickering light. He was smart enough not to follow, after all - he didn't want to go back home in a body bag. But...

He would tell his family about the horses.

-

All is fair in love and war.

Killing and barbarity is nothing new in humanity, Adams reminded himself sternly. This was his walk out of Azkaban... his freedom. He had all his case notes and files and possessions neatly stored in a little briefcase. He swung it. He even began to hum. It would be lovely to see his wife properly again - to go back home, not just for a visit.

The more he thought about home, the less he thought about the boy. Selective forgetfulness - he was very good at it. You had to be, if you were an Auror, to not remember all of the victims... Instead, he thought about his wife, her cooking, her sweet kisses; his daughter, her laughter, the way she hugged him; his son...

Mm. Now there would be the problem.

He stopped humming, pausing as he began to go down a certain corridor. That way was the nearest fireplace, and with a little floo powder, well, home. And that way was also... Well. He was going home, nothing could spoil his good mood, right? He would just get home the soonest he could. Glowingly, he started to go on.

It was when he passed the fifth torch strapped to the wall that he began to slow down. The footprints made him want to look to the left so badly – the grim heavy-set lines that could have come only from an Auror's shoe, splattering slightly as they came down, all... red. No, no, _no_. Keep walking. Do not think about what red means - have to get home, have to get home...

He only had to get home...!

He looked.

The boy looked back.

Adams desperately tried to ignore all the blood. There was a lot of it, a puddle in fact, a crimson pool that the boy was lying in. A drop had so beautifully come out of the corner of his mouth onto the white mask, running along the porcelain cheek before drying there. The boy wasn't moving much. Adams did look enough to see that he was breathing, but the red and the white and the line of the drop drew him inevitably to the boy's face - the boy's eyes.

It was such a quiet expression of betrayal. Adams instantly knew it. The boy didn't want revenge. He didn't want anything at all. There was just emptiness, loneliness, fresh and on the surface there for him to see, and a clear whisper of dying hope in humanity.

The torchlight flickered.

Any words Adams thought of choked in his throat, but when he realized nothing would help, he turned and walked on. The next day, he gladly sent the Ministry his letter of resignation - and a book of pictures of horses.


	4. Chapter 4

**O tempora, o mores!  
Oh the times, oh the morals!**  
-Cicero, _In Catilinam_ 1

--

It was three o' clock in the morning when all of the begging, pleading, politicking, and fruit baskets paid off. Ron and Hermione stood inside Azkaban, the release papers for the boy to be taken into their care clutched tightly in Hermione's hands. Technically, it was simply a transfer of his sentence - he was still a prisoner, but would be serving his term under the care of the compassionate Order instead of the coldhearted Ministry. Hermione fidgeted and hummed to herself, already mentally filling out the forms and doing the legal maneuvering to get him fully exonerated.

Ron was left there, rocking back and forth in boredom with his hands in his pockets as they waited. He finally voiced the question they both were thinking: "Where's Harry?"

"Outside, probably having another cigarette," Hermione conjectured correctly.

There was silence for a moment before Ron observed, "Isn't that his fifteenth tonight?"

"More like twentieth, I think." The silence grew increasingly awkward as they both became nervous, thinking of the way their friend had chosen to slowly kill himself. Hermione tried to justify it in a mutter: "I guess he's just a little jumpy here."

"Mmmn. Yeah."

The silence grew even more terrible and oppressive until it was finally broken by Harry rolling through the door, shaking himself off and glaring. He looked about as happy to be there as a long-tailed cat in a rocking chair factory's testing grounds. However, he simply locked his jaw and bore it, even if he was rather unhappy to be there. Hermione and Ron looked to him questioningly before he glared back at them and growled, "Let's get going."

It was barely half a corridor down before Harry was clawing in his jacket for another cigarette and a light.

Hermione lead the way, papers in hand and wand providing sufficient light. The strongest _lumos_ spell seemed to be barely enough - not so much that its light was lacking but that the light seemed to be eaten by the very shadows it was combating. Right turn, left turn, after awhile they lost track. All Harry knew is it was just too long in such a place.

They knew they were nearly there when Hermione slowed down, shining the light into each cell. It was when she squeaked "Oh, God" and halted that they knew they had arrived. The lock rattled and shook as the cell squealed open. For a moment all they could really do was stare at the small boy sprawled on the floor - and not so much at him, but at all the blood. And then, very suddenly, they all silently started to work.

Hermione conjured a stretcher; Ron and Harry lifted the boy up onto it. It was a delicate operation as they were all aware that it was not a question of if he had broken bones, but _which_ of his bones were broken. Hermione quickly crouched down and performed a cursory spell to staunch some of the bleeding. And with that, they were off - back to the Order, back to safety, back to peace.

And for some reason, Harry didn't light another cigarette on the way back.


	5. Chapter 5

Soundtrack:  
"Something to Sleep To" - Michelle Branch  
"I Saved the World Today" - Eurythmics  
"Could I Be You" - Matchbox 20

**She's his yellow brick road, leading him on,  
going down to nowhere. ...  
In my mind, everything we did was right.**  
-Michelle Branch, "Something to Sleep To"

---

Catiline was having such terrible dreams.

He knew he had to find Joseph and Rose immediately. It was with a pressing urgency that he fled into the dark corners of his mind to find them. As he succumbed to the dizzy spiral of darkness, he finally found himself there. Except... it wasn't the sweet pastel sky framing the cozy cottage and vast fields he remembered. Something was deeply, deeply wrong. It took him a few moments to focus hard enough to rectify the scene so he could tell what it was.

There was a strong wind blowing. The sky was dark - not the pleasant velvet of night. No, on the edges it glowed. This was a storm. This was a bad storm. In the distance it rumbled and roared, coming for him. Terrified, he scrambled up and ran for the cottage door. He couldn't get there fast enough. He stumbled once, just as the thunder blared again. It was all bad.

Inside it was too quiet. When he threw open the door, the walls rattled, empty and silent, a shell of the former busy household. Gasping, he stood there for a moment, staring in disbelief at the cold darkness. No... no, it couldn't be like this. Rose was supposed to be cooking something at this hour. Maybe Joseph would be inside, if not in the barn. They would be talking - laughing – _happy_. He did not expect the sadness of an empty house to slap him as soon as he walked in the door.

He took a tentative step forward and whispered: "Rose?" There was no answer. He yelled this time. "Rose!" Nothing. Oh God, oh God. They couldn't leave him alone, not now, not now. _"Rose! Joseph! Rose!"_ His screams became more frantic and hysterical with every step. It was then he noticed the note on the table. It was a nice little note - written on Rose's stationary, he noticed. He could tell. Her special little notepad had a printed sprig of roses on each page of the creamy paper - she liked the pun. And it was her handwriting, too - large and loopy and graceful. He picked the piece of paper up as if it were a terrible weapon.

It read:

_Cat -  
We will be back later  
Don't worry - I'm sure you will be fine on your own for a bit.  
We love you.  
-Rose_

The paper was dead in his hands. He knew those words exactly from before... and... no, he couldn't think about that, not now. Maybe he could catch them, before they went. They would take the horses, he was sure of it. He flew out the door.

He was running across the field to the barn when he saw the clouds break with a great rumble of thunder, the wall of water bearing down on him. In a moment it and he met and he was instantly drenched to the bone, hard and heavy raindrops pounding him relentlessly. He didn't care. He had to find Joseph and Rose.

He shouted as he neared the stables. The rain drowned him out; he received no reply. Already the dirt was turning into thick and sticky mud, dragging him down, hindering him. It was a trial he told himself he had to endure, even if he was getting tired and it was painful, the feelings leaking back in from his true physical state. He paused at the stable door before dragging it open.

It was empty.

Completely empty. All the horses were gone, Joseph and Rose were not there. All they had left behind were their small vestiges of themselves - a bucket of peppermints for treats. The stack of feed. Hay for the stalls. They hadn't even taken their good bridles... Breath catching into sobs, Catiline shakily walked over to touch the saddles hanging on the wall. The best was Rose's, a polished and shining English riding saddle. She said she was going to teach him how to ride properly someday. Someday, someday, someday - now someday would never get the chance to come...

He sunk down beside the saddles, tucking himself underneath them and curling into a little ball, suddenly wishing with a strong and terrible anger to die. As he closed his eyes and began to sob uncontrollably the world began to blur. He didn't care any more; what reason did he have for staying? The farther he went, the farther he dissolved back into darkness; lethargy and pain smothering him. He finally let go.

And yet --

He was still awake, just on the cusp of consciousness, enough to be aware of the pain slamming into him. There were people murmuring over him, a tapestry of conversation. He couldn't pick out just one thread of a voice... it was so hard to concentrate, his thoughts lumbering along, slow and heavy. But he did notice the hands delicately lifting his head, reaching around to undo the buckle that held his mask on.

It took an intolerable amount of energy for him to drag an arm up to block it. For a moment the hand tried to brush him away, but the harder it pushed, the harder he did. It was a terrible amount of pain, but he bore it. He had to. Finally, he just barely heard -

"Oh, for God's sake. Let him keep it on - can't you see him crying?" It was a woman's voice, young and authoritative. Another pair of hands reached over and wrapped around his hand, pushing it back down to rest. He let his muscles untense, letting her guide it. The momentary terror was gone. He could relax.

For him the distant babble of conversation was soon replaced again with velvet darkness.


End file.
